So finally (I wrote about this nearly a month ago!) Hubby and I looked together at his Bhujangāsana at his request. A big vote of confidence from him, given that all backbends scare him a lot, even tiny baby cobra ones.

It turns out he was confused by his teacher’s cue to imagine that there’s an ice cube under your bellybutton and to pull yourself up away from it. For him this just hurts his SI. So he stopped listening to her and found instead that what his body wanted to do was the opposite — anchoring the belly on the ground gave him a more comfortable pose.

This makes sense to me. In my pose, I keep everything engaged with the ground and just work at moving my chest forward which then ends up as a subtle backbend in the upper back (what I think of as the ‘bra line’ 😉 ).

I showed him how my pose looked — actually even lower than his. I talked him through my actions from feet to head. He had a go as I talked him through again. It felt good, he told me. Then he looked in the mirror and hated it — clearly much lower than he wanted to be! He tried again on his own. Sore, scary, and pinching in the lower back, he said. So I talked him through it once more. Again better for him.

Win-win.

He is slowly reconciling himself to a lower, more honest, and more comfortable pose.

I am slowly reconciling myself to the idea that I do have some understanding and some ability to support others.

We both have much work to do, each with our egos pulling us in odd directions!